By: Michael S (already5chosen.delete@this.yahoo.com), August 22, 2013 2:47 am
Room: Moderated Discussions
Ronald Maas (rmaas.delete@this.wiwo.nl) on August 21, 2013 11:54 pm wrote:
> mas (mas769.delete@this.hotmail.com) on August 21, 2013 6:10 pm wrote:
> > Single thread performance has primarily determined PC sales
> > since the beginning and that will not change going
> > forward. Top bin Haswell has about 6x better performance than
> > top bin A15/A57. AMD is much much closer in performance
> > and cheaper yet it has done nothing but hang on in a money
> > losing fashion to Intel's coattails. The primary threat
> > of ARM is not direct competition but indirectly by delaying/canceling
> > a potential PC purchase when a smartphone/tablet
> > is bought. Intel has finally whipped Atom into competitive
> > shape so that it can be in that tablet or smartphone.
> > This is more a form factor revolution than an architectural/business model one.
>
> After years of hard work and God knows how many billions of dollars spent, Intel finally achieved parity on
> performance per Watt with some existing ARM SOCs. Wow. Great. Intel definitely earned a pat on their back.
> So now they are finally able to compete with companies like Rockchip and other Chinese design houses that are
> able to complete their designs in 6 week time with a just a bunch of engineers. And these companies are able
> to make comfortable profits when they charge just a couple of dollars for their SOCs.
"Couple of dollars" sounds exaggerated. I'd think that for likes of RK3066 "comfortable profits" zone starts above 15 dollars.
How much does Intel need
> to get to earn back their investments for Atom / Silvermont? Probably a whole lot more than that.
>
In case of phone CPU, it's unlikely that Intel is thinking in terms of return of investments. The goal is probably much more moderate - to sell chips above the cost of manufacturing.
> mas (mas769.delete@this.hotmail.com) on August 21, 2013 6:10 pm wrote:
> > Single thread performance has primarily determined PC sales
> > since the beginning and that will not change going
> > forward. Top bin Haswell has about 6x better performance than
> > top bin A15/A57. AMD is much much closer in performance
> > and cheaper yet it has done nothing but hang on in a money
> > losing fashion to Intel's coattails. The primary threat
> > of ARM is not direct competition but indirectly by delaying/canceling
> > a potential PC purchase when a smartphone/tablet
> > is bought. Intel has finally whipped Atom into competitive
> > shape so that it can be in that tablet or smartphone.
> > This is more a form factor revolution than an architectural/business model one.
>
> After years of hard work and God knows how many billions of dollars spent, Intel finally achieved parity on
> performance per Watt with some existing ARM SOCs. Wow. Great. Intel definitely earned a pat on their back.
> So now they are finally able to compete with companies like Rockchip and other Chinese design houses that are
> able to complete their designs in 6 week time with a just a bunch of engineers. And these companies are able
> to make comfortable profits when they charge just a couple of dollars for their SOCs.
"Couple of dollars" sounds exaggerated. I'd think that for likes of RK3066 "comfortable profits" zone starts above 15 dollars.
How much does Intel need
> to get to earn back their investments for Atom / Silvermont? Probably a whole lot more than that.
>
In case of phone CPU, it's unlikely that Intel is thinking in terms of return of investments. The goal is probably much more moderate - to sell chips above the cost of manufacturing.